


On My Life, Love

by Dawn on ICE (Dawn_Blossom)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Anxiety, Happy Ending, M/M, Magic, Marriage, Minor Character Death, Miscommunication, True Love, okay I know those tags sound bad but this is not a tragedy I promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 04:58:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 20,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11844423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawn_Blossom/pseuds/Dawn%20on%20ICE
Summary: When Prince Yuuri and Prince Victor were children, they secretly got engaged. Alas, their friendship soon fell apart.After 14 years of separation, Victor asks Yuuri for his hand in marriage, for it turns out that his childhood promise was a magically binding oath, and now his only options are to marry Yuuri or to remain unwed forever, lest he forfeit his life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Look at what I managed to finish before the semester starts in 3 days :)
> 
> I... really don't know what possessed me to write this. This story is significantly less fluffy than what I usually write (although it's still ultimately happy; I would never give Victor and Yuuri a sad ending). 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you'll still enjoy the fic! And feel free to come yell at me on tumblr ([@dawnonice](http://dawnonice.tumblr.com)) about it, or yoi in general, or whatever

The only time Yuuri ever has any fun is when his friend Victor, crown prince of the Nikiforov Kingdom, comes to visit.

Unfortunately, it’s not as often as either of them would like. While the Nikiforov Kingdom is the Katsuki Kingdom’s closest neighbor, it’s still an ocean away, and Victor’s parents are understandably wary of letting their heir hop on a ship and cross the dangerous waters every time he wants to see Yuuri.

Which, according to Victor’s letters, is every day. Yuuri can’t help but be a little pleased about that. He wishes he could see Victor every day, too.

But sadly, Victor only comes to the Katsuki Kingdom for very important events, like for the renewal of the friendship treaty between their countries, or for the crown princess Mari’s birthday.

Or for Yuuri’s birthday.

Honestly, Yuuri thinks it’s a little surprising that Victor even likes him. He’s four years older than him, after all—closer to Mari’s age than to Yuuri’s.

But Victor _does_ like Yuuri and he’s coming to Yuuri’s eighth birthday party and Yuuri is so, so excited that he can hardly sit still and his parents make him go burn off his energy practicing magic with Minako.

Not that he minds, of course. Magic is his second most favorite thing in the world, right after Victor.

Even better, when Victor does finally arrive, Yuuri gets to run up to him and show him the magical rose he had just spent two hours trying to get right.

“Vitya, Vitya, look!” he shouts as he runs to give his best friend a hug. “I can make flowers! Isn’t that cool? Here, it’s for you!” he says, shoving his creation into Victor’s chest.

It’s kind of a lumpy flower, and the petals are the stereotypical red rather than blue Yuuri was hoping to turn them (to match Victor’s eyes), but Victor laughs in delight anyway.

“That’s amazing! You’re so good at magic, Yuuri!” Victor says, letting go of one of the hands he has on Yuuri in order to take the gift. His other hand stays wrapped around Yuuri’s shoulders, which Yuuri finds that he likes. Normally, he hates it when people outside of his family touch him. Victor is special, not only because Yuuri likes his touch, but because he always has a strong urge to touch Victor as well. Sometimes, he wishes they could be inseparable. In a literal sense. But that’s weird, he knows; he doesn’t say it out loud.

“Do you want to see what I’ve been learning?” Victor asks with a smile. 

Yuuri nods vigorously.

Victor has to remove his hand from Yuuri to do it, which is kind of disappointing, but the joyful glimmer in Victor’s eyes definitely cheers Yuuri up. The older prince cups his hand and stares at it very intently. Wisps of frost begin to curl around his fingers, and they slowly fuse together into a flower shape.

A rose of ice.

Yuuri’s eyes widen in awe. Victor’s magic is always so beautiful. 

Victor places the delicate structure into Yuuri’s hands. The edges of the leaves begin to melt at the heat of Yuuri’s touch, and Yuuri feels a pang of sadness that he doesn’t have the magic to preserve the gift forever.

Something of his sadness must show in his expression, because Victor puts his hand back on Yuuri, resting it on his shoulder this time.

“Hey, want me to teach you how to do this, too?” Victor suggests cheerfully.

Yuuri does. Oh, he so does. But…

“Won’t it be too advanced for me?” he asks hesitantly.

Victor laughs.

“For you? No, no!” he insists. “Yuuri, don’t tell me you’re following your lessons to the letter! Those are meant for your average person, not incredibly talented mages like us.”

Yuuri blushes lightly at the thought of being included in the same category as Victor. Victor’s so much better at magic than he is, but then, he does have four years on Yuuri. Maybe, if Yuuri works hard, he really can be on Victor’s level some day. Yuuri likes that idea a lot.

“But… Minako says that magic is really dangerous… and it’s best to take it slow…” Yuuri protests weakly, but he’s already made up his mind and he knows it.

“Don’t worry; I’ll be right beside you. You can trust me, Yuuri,” Victor says. “I won’t let you get hurt.”

Yuuri believes this. Yuuri does trust Victor. Yuuri desperately wants to learn that magic.

“Well, okay.”

It really turns out not to be that hard. Sure, Yuuri’s ice flowers look a lot more like snowballs than real roses, but Victor promises him that he started out like that, too.

“I threw one at Yakov and he was so mad!” Victor tells him with a grin.”He said, ‘I’m going to resign as your magic tutor, Vitya’ but he says that at least once a week so I knew he was lying. But the look on his face was really funny!”

Yuuri giggles as a thought comes to mind. His fingers slide over the soft, slushy ice in his hand.

Levitation is a very easy art.

“What are you— Hey!” Victor shouts as the slush rains down on him.

Yuuri doubles over with laughter.

“Yuuuri, how could you?” Victor whines.

“Th-the look on your… on your face… was… really funny,” Yuuri chokes out through his laughter.

“Wow, so cruel!” Victor cries, placing a hand over his heart. “I’m so wet and cold and you’re just laughing at me. What a tyrant you are!”

“Vitya, I know you know how to dry yourself off,” Yuuri says, still giggling. He wouldn’t have done it otherwise.

Sure enough, Victor waves a hand over his head, and immediately his clothes and skin return to a perfectly dry state.

“But Yuuri, I’m still cold!” Victor complains. 

“Warming magic—”

“Don’t know it!” Victor interrupts. “I have to find another way to get warm.”

Yuuri doesn’t mind when Victor wraps himself around Yuuri. He doesn’t think Victor’s body feels that cold, but Victor’s kind of a baby about being comfortable, and Yuuri, at least, feels very comfortable being close to him like this.

“Ah... nice.” Victor sighs contentedly. “I guess I can forgive you this time, since you helped me warm up.”

“You would forgive me anyway. It’s my birthday,” Yuuri says with a giggle. “You wouldn’t have come all this way just to hold a grudge against me, would you?”

“Hmm… I guess you’re right,” Victor agrees. “Speaking of which, I can’t wait for you to see my present!”

“Uh, let me guess, furs?” Yuuri teases. The Nikiforov Kingdom has a monopoly on the fur trade, and they aren’t shy about flaunting it. Yuuri has about five opulent fur coats already. He grows out of them every year, so it’s still a plausible gift, but part of him wonders what they’re going to do when he no longer needs a coat a year.

“No, not my country’s present, Yuuri! Mine!” Victor corrects. “I have to give it to you in private because, uh, I kind of wasn’t supposed to take it?” 

“What?” Yuuri shrieks, pushing Victor away from him in horror. “You stole something? I-I don’t want—”

“Shh, shh, it’s fine,” Victor murmurs soothingly. “It’s mine anyway. They just didn’t want me to have it yet.”

This explanation doesn’t do much to make Yuuri feel any better, but Victor looks so confident and happy that Yuuri doesn’t want to spoil it with his stupid worries.

“You’ll sneak into my room tonight, then?” he asks. “The secret passage is still there.”

“Perfect!” Victor says, grinning. “Seriously, don’t worry about it! Nothing bad will happen to you; I promise.”

“I believe you,” Yuuri says softly. “You’ll always keep me safe, won’t you, Vitya?”

“I will,” replies, his smile turning tender. “I’ll prove it to you. Just wait until tonight, okay?”

And when night comes, Yuuri does wait, sneaking halfway into the secret passage because he just can’t sit still in his room.

In the dark, he hears Victor’s footsteps long before he can see the boy approach.

“Excited, are we?” Victor teases when he spots Yuuri. Yuuri might be embarrassed, except that Victor’s suddenly running at him, clearly excited, too.

“I guess we are,” Yuuri says with a laugh, 

They walk back to Yuuri’s room hand-in-hand, both of them trying to stifle their giggling.

“We aren’t being very stealthy, Vitya,” Yuuri murmurs out of the corner of his mouth. “If we ever tried to infiltrate a castle, we’d be caught in an instant.”

This comment sends them both into fits.

“I’d ask Yakov to teach me silencing magic, but I think he’d know I was up to something,” Victor whispers, snickering.

“I bet he’d do it just for the chance to see you be quiet,” Yuuri whispers back, and they both have to smother their laughter again.

When they finally make it to back to his room, the first thing Yuuri does is fling himself on his bed, clutching at his pillows in an attempt to get his laughter under control. Now that they’re in his actual room, they really do have to be quiet, or else someone might come in and catch them, and then Victor would have to leave. Yuuri doesn’t want Victor leave, not ever, but especially not now. So they have to be careful.

“Where’s my present?” Yuuri demands.

Victor’s eyes glimmer with amusement, and Yuuri swears if he laughs, he’s going to hit VIctor with his pillow.

“It’s right here,” Victor says, patting his pocket. “But first, ah…”

Victor grows uncharacteristically serious.

“Yuuri,” he says gently. “Would it scare you if I told you I want to stay close to you forever?”

Yuuri tilts his head in confusion. 

“That sounds like the least scary thing ever,” Yuuri says. “I want to stay close to you forever, too.”

Victor smiles at that.

“We can do that, you know,” he says as he pulls out a small white box, opening it to reveal a golden ring encrusted with three glittering pink stones. The same pink associated with the Nikiforov family.

“V-Vitya…” Yuuri says with a gasp. “That isn’t— You can’t— We’re not even teenagers.”

Yuuri is eight. Eight-year olds can’t get married. Victor is almost 12. 12-year olds can’t get married, either. Yuuri doesn’t know that much about marriage, but he knows it’s not for kids. He knows it’s a Big Deal. He pays attention in his lessons, knows that wars have started over marriage.

But he also knows that married people get to stay together forever. They get to do things together that non-married people would have to do alone. They even get to sleep in the same bed together and their sisters don’t call them crybabies just because they want to cuddle with someone when there’s really loud thunder outside.

“We wouldn’t hold a wedding tomorrow, Yuuri…” Victor says. “We’d just be engaged for now. We’re royalty, so we’re allowed to do that. My parents were engaged since before their birth, you know? Their parents arranged it for them.”

“And… if we don’t get engaged, will your parents do that?” Yuuri asks in horror, his heart clenching painfully. “Arrange for you to marry someone? Someone who’s not me?”

Yuuri does not want that at all. He wants to keep Victor all to himself. It just won’t be the same if it’s Yuuri, Victor, and Victor’s spouse. It has to be the two of them. Just the two of them, always.

Victor stays quiet for several seconds. That in itself says everything.

“But I won’t let them,” Victor says. “I’ll reject anyone they try to set me up with.”

He holds the ring up between them, and _oh,_ when did he get that close?

“You can give me this back anytime if you stop wanting it,” Victor says softly, “but on my life, Yuuri, I won’t marry anybody but you.”

A flash of light briefly blinds them, but it’s gone in an instant.

“What… was that…?” Yuuri whispers in fear. The confusion in Victor’s eyes only makes the terror grow. 

Victor’s hand runs through Yuuri’s hair, which comforts him slightly.

“It was probably just… love magic,” Victor says slowly. “Maybe that flash was how bright my love for you is,” he jokes.

Since Victor’s trying to make him feel better, Yuuri does his best to go along with it.

“Only that bright?” he teases. “If it showed how much _I_ love _you,_ it would have been as bright as a hundred suns!”

It’s a line he’s heard a lot in the kind of plays Mari likes. Yuuri’s never understood the appeal before, but he’s kind of having fun with Victor now. Maybe it’s something you have to experience in order to like.

Victor gasps dramatically.

“Yuuri! You’re too sweet!” he says with a grin. “Good thing I’m proposing now, huh? Before you make everybody fall in love with you.”

Yuuri blushes, but he lets Victor put his ring on him.

“It’s got a spell on it so it’ll always fit your ring finger,” Victor explains. But then his smile dims a bit. “You have to keep it hidden, though. Nobody knows I’m the one that took it. They all think it was a bitter former employee or something.”

Victor laughs, but Yuuri can’t make himself copy him.

“You’re sure this isn’t wrong of us?” Yuuri asks. “You had to sneak it, and now we have to hide it, and… and…”

Warm arms encircle him, and Yuuri relaxes into Victor’s embrace, just like he always does.

“You’re my fiancé now, so I will definitely, absolutely protect you from everything,” Victor says firmly. “Nobody in my family is allowed to give you trouble or else I’ll… I’ll run away and leave them without a crown prince!” Victor decides. “And if your family gives you trouble, you can run away to my kingdom, or we can both run away together, and nobody else can ever come between us.”

Yuuri thinks about this for a moment before nodding. He would be sad to leave his parents, and even Mari, as well as his home, but it’s a good plan, at least. Maybe his family would be sad and beg him to come back with Victor. Otherwise, he and Victor could just be their own family. It would work.

“I’ll protect you, too, Vitya,” he promises. “If you get in trouble with your family, then I’ll hide you here in my room. Or maybe it’s your room too now. Aren’t married people supposed to share everything?”

“Yes, yes!” Victor says excitedly. “We’ll share everything! Our possessions, our responsibilities, our joys and our sorrows!”

“Okay!” Yuuri agrees. Thinking about the future is always a little frightening. He doesn’t have as many expectations on him as Mari does, but there’s always so much that can go wrong, so much that he can mess up on.

And yet, as long as he gets to keep spending time with Victor, he really believes that everything will turn out alright.


	2. Chapter 2

Yuuri should have known that nothing good could last. And Victor was not just _good_ but _the best,_ so of course Yuuri couldn’t keep him.

Yuuri knows it’s his fault. He’s so _boring._ The only time anything interesting happens is when Victor’s around. Well, that and when he learns new magic, but Victor _already knows_ everything that Yuuri’s learning.

That’s why, even though Victor’s sent him at least one letter per month since his birthday last year, Yuuri’s only managed to send a couple back. He just doesn’t have anything to say! Every time he tries to put his pen to the paper, he just ends up writing stupider and stupider things! And then Victor will send him _another_ letter, and Yuuri doesn’t even know what he’s supposed to be answering anymore!

He thinks everything will be fine, though. It’s November, and his birthday’s in November, so Victor will come and Yuuri will be able to tell him about all the trouble he’s having and Victor will hug him and comfort him and teach him how to write better letters and everything will be okay.

At least, that’s what he thinks right up until he receives a letter from Victor, just a week before his birthday.

_“Why won’t you talk to me anymore? Did I freak you out with the ring or something? You always take everything too seriously! It’s not like I’m really in love with you, so don’t act so scared! We were just playing, you know? Like we always play around? Stop being weird about it! It’s making me really mad!”_

_-Victor_

Yuuri isn’t sure which part of the letter hurts him the most. Is it “you always take everything too seriously,” the completely truthful but still painful accusation? Is it “it’s not like I’m really in love with you,” a statement that sure does hurt a lot for something that Yuuri really should already have known? Is it “ _we_ were just playing,” as though Victor has any right to speak for Yuuri’s feelings on the matter? Or maybe it’s the use of the cold “Victor” rather than the familiar “Vitya” that does him in?

At any rate, it doesn’t really matter. The next thing Yuuri knows, he’s collapsing onto his bed with a sob. And then another sob comes, and another, and he can’t stop crying, and he wants Victor to comfort him but that will never happen again because Victor hates him.

Victor _hates_ him.

And the worst part is that he can’t even tell anyone why he suddenly isn’t excited for Victor to come see him, why the mere mention of his birthday fills him with dread. Victor will get in so much trouble if anyone finds out that he gave his engagement ring to someone stupid like Yuuri, and all for the sake of a game, too. And even if Victor hates him, Yuuri doesn’t want anything bad to happen to him. It’s not like he can just run away to Yuuri, now.

So he can’t tell anyone about what happened, about the engagement (which Yuuri supposes is definitively off now, if it was ever really on to begin with), or else they’ll find out about the ring. The ring that is supposed to be stolen and definitely not in Yuuri’s possession.

The ring that, oh no, Victor is probably going to want back.

Yuuri looks down at his hand, at his right hand (because that’s where couples put their rings in Victor’s kingdom, Yuuri’s learned) where the beautiful ring fits perfectly on his finger just as it was spelled to. Yuuri had studied hard to find a spell that could conceal it. Invisibility is still beyond him, but he’d managed a spell that would make it appear as a plain steel ring to everybody. Only Yuuri would know what it was supposed to look like.

And it was hard! It was hard and it took a long time to get right and it’s not fair that Victor can just take the ring back like this!

And actually, you know what, Victor _can’t_ do that. He gave Yuuri the ring for his birthday; that means it was a gift. And Yuuri’s a good student who always pays attention in his lessons, so he knows that you have to be very careful about gifts, because you can’t always get them back. Maybe if the person you gave it to is very nice, but… but if Victor’s going to hate him anyway, then why should Yuuri be nice? No, he’s keeping this ring. It’s never going back to Victor. It belongs to Yuuri now, and he can do whatever he wants with it.

… But he probably _shouldn’t_ wear it on that finger. _That_ wasn’t supposed to be part of the gift, obviously.

He finds a chain to put the ring on and starts wearing it around his neck, instead. Because it’s his, and he can. If Victor doesn’t like it, then he shouldn’t have been so stupid as to give it to Yuuri.

Really, Victor is such a stupid friend. He always throws himself into everything and (oh no, Yuuri doesn’t need to think of him smiling) if Yuuri’s too serious, then VIctor’s not serious enough! Thank goodness Victor wasn’t serious about marrying him! Yuuri doesn’t need a stupid dumb idiot as a friend, and especially not as a husband.

But no matter how he tries to justify it to himself, there’s an ache in Yuuri’s chest that just won’t go away.

It’s not really Victor’s fault. He’ll be thirteen in a month; he’s probably going through the mysterious “changes” that teenagers go through that he always hears doctors whispering about. And Yuuri’s not even in double digits yet. He probably seems like an infant to Victor.

No, the real problem is Yuuri and his ridiculous expectations. He wants to keep Victor’s attention forever, and he shouldn’t want that. He’s too selfish! He hears that word all the time, about other people in the palace. Nobody ever says it about him, but it’s only because they don’t know he’s being selfish. Maybe Victor found out. Maybe that’s why he hates him now.

But the problem is, it doesn’t really matter if it’s him being stupid or if it’s Victor. It hurts. It hurts every day up until the party. It especially hurts when he has no choice but to look at Victor and thank him and his family for the seventh ugly fur coat he’s gotten from them.

Victor keeps trying to catch his eye afterwards. Yuuri gives him his politest smile and does everything he can to ignore him.

Of course, it’s very hard to ignore him when every inch of Yuuri wants to run to him for comfort and cry _please, Vitya, hold me._ But he has to be strong. Victor doesn’t like him anymore, and he probably only wants to talk to Yuuri to get the ring back. And if he says that, Yuuri really will probably start crying in his arms, and then everyone will make fun of Yuuri at his own birthday celebration, and he just can’t handle that.

He’s nine today. That’s almost a whole decade old. And he’s a prince, too. He can get through one painful evening.

He retires early to his room, hoping to cut the night short with sleep. He doesn’t even consider the secret passage until he suddenly hears a knocking on his inner walls.

“Yuuri!” Victor’s voice whisper-yells. “Yuuri!”

Yuuri feels his blood run cold.

“Yuuri, talk to me!” Victor begs.

Yuuri doesn’t understand. It’s not like there’s a lock over the secret passage. The panel will slide up at the mere touch of magic. Victor could just come in if he really wanted to. Victor knows this.

… Is Yuuri too awful to even look at, now?

“Yuuri, please!” Victor continues.

“Go away!” Yuuri hisses from his bed.

“Oh, Yuuri!” Victor breathes a sigh of relief. “I was afraid you weren’t there. Listen, I—”

“I said go away,” Yuuri repeats, louder.

Victor is right there. Victor is right there and Yuuri could go to him. He could pretend they were still friends one last time. He could. 

He can’t.

“Just leave me alone!” he adds for emphasis.

“But, I—”

“Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone!” Yuuri shouts.

Naturally, this commotion draws some attention.

“Prince Yuuri?” a guard calls.

Uh-oh.

No, this is more than uh-oh. This is the kind of situation that calls for adult language. Yuuri is nine now; he’s mature enough to use adult words.

_Shit._

“Uh, I’m okay!” Yuuri answers. “I was just, uh… having a nightmare!” he lies.

(Is it a lie, though? This entire situation is like the biggest nightmare he’s ever had.)

“Do you need—”

“No!” Yuuri interrupts. “I’m fine! I’m going back to sleep right now! Sorry to bother you!”

When he hears the guard shuffle away, Yuuri finally relaxes. Only, then he remembers why he was upset in the first place, and he stiffens again.

“You didn’t sick the guards on me?” Victor asks softly. “Why?”

Yes, why? Yuuri wants Victor to leave; the guards would have made Victor leave.

But…

_(“I’ll protect you, too, Vitya.”)_

Victor was just playing around, but Yuuri never was.

“Go away, _Prince Victor,_ ” Yuuri growls.

He hears a sharp intake of breath on the other side, and then… nothing.

Yuuri is left alone.


	3. Chapter 3

At 23, Yuuri wishes he could say he had accomplished something in his life. The closest thing to an “accomplishment” he has is the time he was invited to compete in an international magical competition. Of course, as soon as he found out that Crown Prince Victor of the Nikiforov Kingdom was going to compete there, Yuuri immediately tendered his resignation.

It sounds so pathetic when he says it like that. His life should _not_ revolve around Victor (or avoiding him, as the case may be). And yet, stepping into his room is like stepping into a shrine to Victor. Yuuri has so many paintings of him that it would border on treasonous if their countries weren’t in such good favor with each other. Yuuri even practices magic in the same style just to be a little more like him. Not to mention the fact that Yuuri still wears a ring with the Nikiforov colors on a chain around his neck.

Maybe Yuuri’s actual accomplishment is managing to be the biggest loser on the planet. He knows he pays too much attention to Victor for someone who lost his friendship over a decade ago. He knows, but he can’t bring himself to stop.

It’s not as though doing any of this actually fills the Victor-shaped hole in his heart. Yuuri doesn’t know if he doesn’t _want_ to get over it or if he _can’t,_ but the loss of Victor’s friendship is a wound that just won’t close.

If there’s any consolation, though, Victor _has_ technically kept _one_ promise up until now. He hasn’t married anybody but Yuuri, because he hasn’t married anyone at all. He hasn’t even entertained any suitors, though there are tales that say if you catch him in the right mood in the middle of the night, he’ll take you to bed and give you the best night of your life all while maintaining a stone-cold expression.

Yuuri doesn’t know if that last rumor is true, and frankly, he’s not sure he ever wants to find out.

Of course, now the general public has been made well aware that Victor is planning to take a spouse. His father is old and ill, and it’s obvious that Victor is going to take the throne soon. He’ll be better off if he has a spouse by his side.

Yuuri wonders what his poor future spouse would think if they knew Yuuri was still carrying an engagement ring around with him.

Well, Yuuri knows _he_ wouldn’t like it.

Yuuri has no claim on Victor. None at all. Certainly not that of a friend, but really, not even that of an acquaintance, either. Yuuri has spent the past 14 years avoiding Victor at every opportunity. They may as well be strangers. He’s not even sure Victor would recognize him anymore.

So estranged are the two of them that when Yuuri walks down the hallway one morning only to come face-to-face with Victor, his first thought is that he must be dreaming.

Or, well, having a nightmare. In Yuuri’s best dreams, Victor smiles at him like when they were young. In his nightmares, Victor comes to murder him for not giving the ring back.

“Prince Yuuri,” Victor greets coolly. “I was looking for you.”

Well, wait. Victor in his dreams never looks like _this._ Sad and drained and lifeless.

Yuuri couldn’t make this up. But why does he look like that? What’s wrong? He’s supposed to be like... sunshine, or something! (Victor was always better at sounding poetic than Yuuri.) 

Who made him look like this?

“Vitya” almost spills out from Yuuri’s lips before he can stop himself, but he catches himself in time.

He lost the right to use that name years ago.

“Prince Victor,” Yuuri says properly. He pauses, searching for something to say. “Uh… Here I am.”

Wait.

Why would he say _that?_

Sometimes Yuuri wishes his tongue had been ripped out as a baby. Or perhaps that he had been cursed to silence. Anything to keep his stupid mouth from saying stupid things.

Victor’s lips quirk upwards, but his eyes remain impassive.

“Yes, here you are.” He sighs heavily. “Though you won’t like the news we’re here to offer, I’m afraid.”

Yuuri’s heart stutters at that. What kind of awful news would drive Victor to actually talk to him? Is the Nikiforov Kingdom okay? Is the _Katsuki_ Kingdom okay? Is there a war? What if—

“Prince Yuuri,” Victor says gently, breaking Yuuri’s thought spiral. “It’s nothing dire.”

“Oh. Okay,” Yuuri says.

It’s nothing dire

What is that supposed to mean? It’s obviously something _important_ if it brought the Nikiforov Kingdom over here without warning. What could possibly be so important, but not dire?

“You’ll… have to come with me,” Victor says, sighing again. “We have much to discuss.”

He has to go with Victor. Yuuri’s been avoiding this moment for many years, but he should have known he couldn’t escape forever.

“Okay,” Yuuri agrees resignedly. 

He follows Victor to one of the many rooms in the palace designed for private meetings about serious matters. Part of him wonders if he should overtake Victor, lead the way himself, assert dominance in his own domain. In truth, though, he doesn’t actually care that much. Victor already looks washed-out, even lost. If anything, Yuuri wants to stay behind him just to keep an eye on him.

(But if anyone asks, Yuuri is only doing this to avoid showing his back to the foreign prince. It’s a plausible excuse. Yuuri does hate to have people where he can’t see them.)

And yet, when they enter the room, Victor’s demeanor shifts. He looks more like he does in Yuuri’s paintings: confident and intense. He looks impressive. He’ll be a good king, Yuuri thinks.

Yuuri, for his part, is the world’s most awkward prince, and _everybody_ knows it. He slinks off to sit next to his mother, which is, fortunately or unfortunately, directly across from Victor’s seat. 

Yuuri takes a deep breath and then, beneath the table, he lets a few crystals of ice form in his fingers. Magic always calms him. Controlling it is a lot like controlling your emotions; if you can do one, you can do the other. And Yuuri has been controlling his magic for years.

His emotions are no different, even if it doesn’t always feel that way.

And it’s a good thing that Yuuri knows how to control himself, because otherwise, he might have choked on his own breath at the next words that are spoken.

“Because time is of the essence to us, I will speak plainly,” Lilia Baranovskaya, the Nikiforov Kingdom’s head of foreign affairs, announces. “We wish to secure Prince Yuuri’s hand in marriage. We are prepared to work out a favorable deal in exchange. What say you, your majesties?”

Both of Yuuri’s parents look at him in concern, which, okay, is fair considering that Yuuri has been completely unsubtle about avoiding Victor. Yuuri knows his parents won’t force him into anything he doesn’t want, no matter how good of an offer it is, but…

“Why is it that Prince Victor would seek my hand?” Yuuri asks. At this point, it seems a lot like pouring salt into all of Yuuri’s wounds, but surely there must be some reason. Their countries are on the best of terms already, and that’s not likely to change when Victor and eventually Mari come to power, so it’s not like they need to secure an alliance. And if they just wanted to offer Victor’s hand to the Katsuki Kingdom first as a sign of friendship, well, Yuuri would certainly decline, even if it was a nice gesture. But they didn’t offer up Victor, and they made no attempt to even ask after Mari, who’s a much better marriage option.

So it’s hard not take it a little bit like a personal insult, but Yuuri trusts that Victor wouldn’t drag his whole country into this just to mess with Yuuri. 

“It seems that Prince Victor once made a promise to you that he cannot break,” Lilia says, her lips pressing into a thin line. 

So it _is_ about that. But that’s ridiculous; why would that matter now?

“I never had any intention of forcing you into anything,” Yuuri says quickly. “If you, uh, feel like you owe me anything, uh… don’t?”

Wow. Real eloquent. A lifetime of diplomacy lessons, and this is what he comes up with. That ought to make them back out quickly.

But Victor just frowns and shakes his head.

“Ah, no. Prince Yuuri, when she said I cannot break it…” He sighs, briefly closing his eyes, then fixes his gaze straight on Yuuri. “Don’t you remember what I said? I swore on my life.”

Of course Yuuri remembers what Victor said. He’s had years to memorize every single word that Victor had ever said to him and analyze to pieces. But swearing on his life wouldn’t make a difference, unless.

Shit. Yuuri had been scared by a flash of light, hadn’t he. There wasn’t a storm that night, so it shouldn’t have been lightning...

“You made a magical oath? Seriously?” Yuuri gasps as the realization dawns on him. “A-Are you going to die if I don’t marry you? Oh my god!”

He’s about to shout out his immediate acceptance of the marriage offer without even hearing it (what kind of awful person would let somebody else die? Victor absolutely cannot die!), but Victor puts a hand up to stop him.

“It’s not quite that serious,” he insists. “As long as I don’t marry anyone else, I can live freely. However, if I am to marry, it has to be you.”

The ring suddenly weighs heavily around Yuuri’s neck.

_(“You can give me this back anytime if you stop wanting it,” Victor says softly, “but on my life, Yuuri, I won’t marry anybody but you.”)_

“So it’s me or nothing…” Yuuri mutters. No wonder the Nikiforov Kingdom looks ready to give up half its wealth for this.

It’s not as though Victor _has_ to marry in order to rule, and Yuuri’s sure that he’ll be just as successful without a spouse. (Perhaps even more successful, if Yuuri’s his only spousal option.)

But he can’t imagine that Victor wants to be alone. Not when he once wrote to Yuuri telling him how much he _didn’t._

It was back when they were still friends, of course. After the non-proposal, but before Yuuri learned that is was a non-proposal.

_”Hey, I know you’re afraid of a lot of things, but is there anything you’re REALLY, REALLY afraid of, Yuuri? If I had to pick, I think I’d say loneliness. Have you read about Elaine the Wise yet? It’s really sad, her husband died and she only had her children left. And then they went off to fight in a war and never came back! They say she lost even her sense of self after that. She was the most respected person in her village, but without all the people she loved, she couldn’t even find the will to cast magic anymore. Isn’t that awful, Yuuri? But I think I kind of understand because I would be sad to be alone, too. Oh, not that I need to worry about that or anything! You don’t need to worry about it either! Or anything else, you know? I know you’re brave and always fighting by yourself, but if you can’t anymore then I’ll come fight for you, just tell me. And write me back soon okay?”_

_-Vitya_

Maybe Victor doesn’t feel the same way. Children can grow out of their fears, after all (okay, Yuuri couldn’t, but he’s sure it’s possible for somebody out there).

But still.

He doesn’t want Victor to have to face everything alone. It’s unfortunate that Victor’s now stuck with Yuuri (even if it is his own fault), but… they’re adults now. To this day, Yuuri doesn’t know what he did to make Victor stop liking him so abruptly, but surely it couldn’t be so heinous that Victor would hate him for it to this day?

Yuuri’s spent the past 14 years running away from Victor and all the feelings that came with him. But now that he’s here, and here for Yuuri, at that, parts of Yuuri that he’d thought he’d killed are coming back in full force.

And deep, deep inside his heart, Yuuri is a little pleased that Victor can only ever have _him._

“I am not opposed,” Yuuri says, hoping that he sounds calm despite the frantic beating of his heart. “What can you offer the Katsuki Kingdom?”

In fact, Yuuri stops listening after this. He thought he should try to be a decent prince for once and get _something_ for his people, but the truth is that Yuuri is going to accept no matter what his miserable hand ends up being worth. His parents can work out what they want. Yuuri’s already getting what he wants.

Instead of listening, he observes Victor across from him. His blue eyes storm with some emotion Yuuri can’t identify. Yuuri just wants to understand him. Yuuri’s just wanted to understand him for many years.

Victor catches him looking once, and he flashes the briefest of smiles. Yuuri immediately averts his gaze, embarrassed to be staring at… well, he supposes he may as well call Victor his fiancé at this point (and doesn’t that bring back memories). Still, the part of Yuuri that’s never stopped longing for Victor’s attention flares up at the sight, immediately going into overdrive after years of being subdued.

Soon, he’ll have Victor back. And then maybe his heart will finally stop aching after all this time.

In the end, after several days of negotiations, the Katsuki Kingdom gets a piece of profitable farming land, a six-year contract that cuts the price of furs by 25 percent, and a good amount of gold. The Nikiforov Kingdom, of course, gets Yuuri.

Personally, Yuuri thinks it’s a terrible tradeoff, but obviously the Nikiforov Kingdom is desperate to have him. He can see the relief on their faces when he accepts.

Relief which quickly turns to shock when Yuuri pulls out his ring (his own ring, thank you very much), and slips it onto his finger (because Victor is never taking this ring back, even if it’s just to put it right back on him).

Yuuri’s parents don’t look surprised, probably because they assume Victor gave it to him more recently. It’s only the Nikiforov Kingdom who ever thought it lost, and only Victor and Yuuri who know the full story.

“You kept it,” Victor says, sounding almost awed. 

“I don’t generally throw away valuables,” Yuuri answers. Anything Victor gave him is valuable, which is why Yuuri still has every letter Victor ever wrote to him locked up in a hidden drawer in his desk. Nobody in the room needs to know that, though. “I thought I might need it for this.”

“We got another ring,” Victor says. “It’s… unnecessary now, I suppose…”

He pulls out a new ring, one very similar in design to Yuuri’s. The main difference is that where Yuuri’s ring holds pink jewels, this new one holds purple ones. Pink and purple, the Nikiforov colors.

“Wait,” Yuuri says before it can be taken away. “Wait, I want…”

Possessiveness surges within him. Nobody stops him when he grabs the ring, nor when he grabs Victor’s hand.

“Wear it,” Yuuri demands. “Wear it, and match with me.”

Victor looks just as taken aback by Yuuri’s sudden boldness as Yuuri himself is, but his voice is steady when he speaks.

“Will you put in on me, then?” Victor asks

Yuuri narrows his eyes. He’s not at all gentle when he pushes the ring downward, but with all the spells on it, it still glides smoothly, coming to rest perfectly on Victor’s finger.

“May our union be _everlasting,_ ” Yuuri says in a low voice.


	4. Chapter 4

Yuuri feels stupid. God, why is always so stupid? Why is he always so stupid when Victor is concerned, especially?

Why did he agree to marry Victor? He should have said no and immediately locked himself in his room for the next year. Yuuri’s not ready to be a consort, especially not to the Nikiforov kingdom! He’s only been there, like, three or four times! And that was back when he was a kid and could visit Victor without making himself sick.

Oh no, is going to get ill again? Yuuri’s managed to avoid every event the Nikiforov Kingdom has invited him to by somehow getting violently ill just before he would have to leave for it. It’s not like Yuuri’s been doing on purpose, either, even though he’s sure “Yuuri has food poisoning _again_ and couldn’t come” must sound like the worst excuse ever.

But no, it feels different this time. Now that he’s had to face Victor in person, it kind of seems dumb that Yuuri couldn’t bear to see him before now. He remembers that nine-year old Yuuri was very, very convinced that the world would end if he ever had to talk to Victor again, and so was ten-year old Yuuri, but… hadn’t it just become a habit after that?

And Victor is being strangely nice about the whole thing. So nice, in fact, that Yuuri wonders if perhaps he really did forget all about Yuuri. He was probably shocked to find out that he’d promised something to the weird Katsuki prince. He was probably shocked to find out that he’d ever talked to someone like Yuuri at all.

“Yuuri? Can I come in?” Victor calls from outside his door.

It’s weird to hear him say “Yuuri” again, but they both agreed that it would be strange to be too formal with someone you’re about to be married to.

(But Victor didn’t ask him to use “Vitya.” Yuuri doesn’t know if he’s relieved or disappointed.)

“Absolutely not!” Yuuri shouts. His collection of Victor paintings is going to look bad whether Victor remembers what he was mad at Yuuri for or not. And if he sees all the old letters Yuuri kept, he’ll think Yuuri is obsessed, which… okay, is not entirely an unfair assessment, but… in any case, Victor is not coming into his room. Even if Yuuri put up concealment spells, he wouldn’t be able to relax knowing that Victor could stumble upon them at any moment.

“Okay!” Victor replies. “But, ah, we’re supposed to go to dinner together, remember? Your family is going to see us off before we leave tomorrow morning?”

Shit, that’s right. He can’t get away with spending all night in his room, and he wouldn’t want to, anyway. His heart clenches painfully when he thinks of his family, and his tutors, and everybody in the palace that he’s going to miss. It’s not as though Yuuri was great friends with anyone (already made that mistake once), but they’ve always been with him. The palace is his home.

He really is stupid. He was so eager to gain Victor back that he forgot what he was going to be losing in the process.

With great effort (and a few calming bursts of ice magic), Yuuri resolutely does _not_ cry, not even when he gets to dinner and there’s katsudon and he realizes that the kitchen staff in Victor’s castle will never be able to make it quite the same way. Nobody will do anything quite the same way. He doesn’t _know_ what it will be like.

The unknown has always frightened him.

“Yuuri?” Victor murmurs quietly. “Are you feeling bad? Or is the food not to your liking? Because you could always—”

“I know what I can do in my own palace,” Yuuri snaps.

Victor closes his eyes and takes a sip of his drink. He does not look thrilled, obviously.

Great, now Yuuri’s making Victor hate him twice over. What a great plan.

“S-Sorry, it’s the former,” Yuuri says quickly as shame nearly chokes him. 

“And I suppose you don’t need my help with that,” Victor says with clearly forced politeness.

“I don’t think there’s anything you can do about it,” Yuuri mumbles, looking down to stare at his barely-touched food.

Suddenly, he feels a firm hand press into his, and then Yuuri’s stomach feels like it’s being filled with ice water.

His head whips around to Victor.

“What… What did you do to me?” Yuuri asks, his eyes wide. The cold feeling inside him is fading, but the fear isn’t.

“A spell to aid digestion,” Victor explains. “I… thought it would help…”

“Don’t cast magic on me without telling me!” Yuuri says in horror.

“I thought it would help…” Victor repeats, closing his eyes again. “I’m sorry.”

Yuuri sighs. Victor really does look sorry. And Yuuri’s stomach really does feel better. 

Victor’s hand is still in his, so Yuuri gives it a gentle squeeze.

“Please just tell me next time,” Yuuri says softly. “Thank you for the magic. It did help, a bit. I know you’re the best mage in your kingdom.”

(Arguably in any kingdom, as the results of every international magic competition Victor’s ever been in suggest. But Yuuri doesn’t think Victor needs to know he keeps up with that.)

“Anytime,” Victor says. “Please tell me when I can help you, Yuuri.”

Ideally, Yuuri won’t have to ask Victor for help at all. He’s not a child anymore. He can’t run to Victor every time something mildly troublesome happens, or else he’d never be able to leave Victor’s side at all. They’re royalty; their lives are full of troublesome happenings.

That’s right, Yuuri’s going to be the king-consort. And he’s going to have to be better than he used to be, better than he is now. For the sake of Victor’s people. For the sake of Victor himself.

Yuuri finishes his dinner without saying much else. His stomach remains blissfully free of pain.

(Too bad he can’t say the same about his mind.)

“Can I sleep with you tonight, Yuuri?” Victor asks when he walks Yuuri back to his room.

Victor has asked this every night since their engagement. The answer is still no.

“Are you ever going to let me sleep with you?” Victor asks. 

This is a new question.

“Yes, of course,” Yuuri mumbles. “Don’t be so impatient.”

Yuuri slips into his room before Victor can say anything more. He slams the door shut as quickly as he can, hoping that Victor wasn’t able to see anything that he shouldn’t.

As has become routine, Victor waits for two minutes before he knocks on the door.

“Yuuri?” he calls.

Yuuri does not respond.

“Goodnight, Yuuri!” Victor says. Sofly, in a voice that Yuuri doubts he’d be able to hear were he not pressing his face to the door in a rather pathetic attempt to be close to Victor even as he hides himself away, he continues. “May you have the sweetest dreams. You deserve the best of them.”

There’s no good excuse for the longing that fills Yuuri’s heart at hearing Victor’s whispered words. Maybe Victor was a little stupid as a kid (it’s not as though Yuuri wasn’t, too), but now he’s just… a kindhearted prince. Yuuri wishes that Victor had never given him that ring when they were children, because then they would have stayed friends and Yuuri could have grown up by his side (would Yuuri have become a better person, too, next to Victor?). But since that didn’t happen… Yuuri doesn’t want to waste this chance to have Victor in his life again. All he wants to do is to stay close to Victor. He just doesn’t know how.

“You, too, Victor,” Yuuri whispers into the frame of his door. “You really are wonderful.”

He knows, of course, that Victor cannot hear him. He knows that the words don’t count for anything unless Victor hears him. But for now, this is all he can give.


	5. Chapter 5

Yuuri, for the first time in years, gets on a ship set for the Nikiforov Kingdom.

And he doesn’t even have food poisoning.

He feels better after getting a night of sleep. That doesn’t always work, but perhaps it was Victor wishing him sweet dreams that pulled it through for him. At any rate, he embraces his parents and his sister, he promises Minako that he’ll keep up with his magical training, and he bids farewell to the attendants who have been in his life since birth. Then, with only a slight tugging at his heartstrings, he boards his fiancé’s ship determined to face his future with dignity.

“Our room’s the biggest one, so you should find it easily,” Victor tells him. “I probably won’t be in there that much, but I’m sure you can find something to do in there. I have books, at least, if you can’t find think of anything else.”

“That’s fine,” Yuuri says. But thinking more on Victor’s words, he frowns. “Wait, where are you going to be?”

“I’m going to use my magic to speed up the ship,” Victor replies. “It will probably still take us a couple of days even with my help, but it’s better than a week-long trip, right?”

Yuuri blinks in surprise. The thought of Victor, the crown prince, actually working while on the ship was not something that had occurred to him. Of course, it makes sense if he’s going to be on the ship anyway. No need to hire extra mages to keep things running smoothly when your prince is good enough to make up for the work of three.

“Can I help, too?” Yuuri asks hesitantly. “I pick up spells quick, uh…”

Yuuri’s starting to regret speaking up. Sure, Yuuri’s magical ability is quite pronounced from constant practice, but it’s not like he has anything on Victor, or any of the other mages on the ship. And Yuuri is, after all, a stranger here. Who would want a foreign mage messing around with their ship? Why had Yuuri even asked something like that?

Victor fixes him with an unreadable look. Then, slowly, he nods.

“Thank you, Yuuri. It never hurts to have another mage around,” he says, putting on a polite smile. “With your help, perhaps we’ll only have to spend one night on the ship.”

That would be nice. Yuuri doesn’t really mind being on ships or anything, having been on them plenty of times in the past. He’s lucky in that he doesn’t get seasick. Maybe it’s because he’s already used to the world feeling unsteady. He’s luckier than his sister in that regard. Mari always manages to get sick whenever she sets foot on a boat, and as a child she always had to run to someone for a spell or two. Of course, as she got older, she mastered the spells herself. Magic was always more of Yuuri’s thing than Mari’s, but unsurprisingly, as the jack-of-all-trades crown princess, she’s always been perfectly competent at it.

Before he can get too sad thinking about his sister (it’s not as though he’ll never see her again, he reminds himself), he follows Victor to the deck. At Yuuri’s request, Victor orders one of the younger mages to teach Yuuri the proper shipkeeping spells. The practice helpfully gives Yuuri’s mind something to focus on, and it’s funny to see the teenaged mage get excited at Yuuri’s quick mastery of the simple spells. The young are so easily impressed.

It isn’t long before Yuuri is satisfied with his progress, so he dismisses the mage back to his duties. He goes off to find Victor, eventually spotting him leaning over the edge of the ship in an isolated corner of the deck. His arm is extended so that it dangles over the water, and Yuuri can see his hand spinning in lazy circles (so it’s a spell to keep the waters smooth, then). His half-closed eyes stare out at the distant horizon. He looks more pensive than Yuuri would have ever imagined him being.

Yuuri isn’t sure that he should interrupt, but he doesn’t quite feel comfortable with the idea of finding his own place to cast. What if someone comes up to him and asks him something Yuuri doesn’t know the answer to? What if he needs to find Victor? What if Victor moves somewhere even more hidden and Yuuri can’t find him again?

No, Yuuri feels like he should stay. He can cast his spells subtly, without bothering Victor. He finds a place to sit behind Victor in his corner, and he turns his gaze to the sky. Slowly, he raises his hands, adding his magic to what Victor is already doing. 

Smooth waters and clear skies. The perfect conditions for sailing.

Keeping the skies clear is the kind of magic that requires a lot of concentration. The universe doesn’t mind bending to suit human will, but nevertheless, the forces of nature do not bow easily. No matter how much magic Yuuri puts out, the sky persistently pushes clouds back. His best tactic is to aim to keep them white and fluffy rather than storm-gray.

Victor, for all that he manages to look bored, must be using a lot of magic, too, in order to maintain control over the water. Every now and then, the sound of splashing indicates something breaking through the force of the spell. When that happens, Victor flicks his wrists a bit more sharply, and the sea once again falls to his power.

Still, even though it takes effort, Yuuri enjoys flexing his magic. It’s both soothing and invigorating. He closes his eyes contentedly and lets the magic flow out of him in a stream of power.

He doesn’t know how long he sits like this, but it must be for quite some time, because when he opens his eyes again, Victor has stopped casting and is now standing directly over him, a frown on his face.

“Shouldn’t you be taking a break?” Victor asks. “Or were you hoping to pass out before we got to my kingdom?”

Yuuri’s lips tug downwards in a frown to match Victor’s. He isn’t that tired yet. He feels like he could certainly go for at least a couple more hours without needing to rest. Victor has no right to be mad when Yuuri’s over here trying his best to help _him._

“I feel fine,” Yuuri insists. “And why does it matter? If I passed out, you’d just get a guard to carry me around. I’ll get there either way.”

“If you passed out, I’d carry you myself!” Victor snaps. “And it would be really inconvenient for me, so try not to do that!”

“I wouldn’t burden you like that,” Yuuri says, and he hopes Victor hears the sincerity in his voice. Yuuri doesn’t _want_ to fight with Victor. He only wants to help Victor. Even if they can never be friends like they used to be, surely they can be civil, can’t they? 

“It’s not a burden to take care of you,” Victor says, his voice straining. Then he sighs, and he closes his eyes. “Just do me a favor and take a break. Come eat with me. Even if you feel fine, _I_ don’t.”

It’s as good a way to stop fighting as any, so Yuuri nods.

“I don’t mind taking a break,” he admits. “I just wanted you to know that I don’t need one yet.”

Victor mumbles something that sounds like “monster stamina” before grabbing Yuuri’s left hand with his right and dragging him off to have a snack. The jewels of his ring press against Yuuri’s skin, and the reminder of their engagement only serves to make Yuuri’s heart ache worse. Victor was probably just trying to be a good prince. It would look terrible if he let his fiancé fall unconscious from magical exhaustion right in front of him. It’s not his fault he can’t tell when Yuuri needs to stop and when he doesn’t. There’s just no way he could possibly know that.

Yuuri takes a moment to study Victor, since he’s admitted that he’s at the point where he needs to rest. He honestly doesn’t look it. His hair is slightly matted from sweat, and his hand feels clammy to Yuuri’s touch, but if he weren’t trying to look for symptoms, Yuuri isn’t sure that he would notice.

Well, he’ll be sure to notice _now._ If Victor starts looking like this, it means he needs to take a break. This is the kind of thing you’re supposed to know about your spouse, right?

“Victor,” he speaks up hesitantly. “I’ll feel like I’m burning up, but my skin will look pale.”

“What?” Victor asks. There’s a note of concern in his tone, and Yuuri chuckles dismissively.

“No, uh, I’m just telling you this for the future. When I’m getting magically exhausted, I get this unhealthy paleness to me. But if you touch me anywhere, it will feel like I’m on fire.”

“I see,” Victor says. He rubs a finger against Yuuri’s hand, which is perfectly normal to the touch. “Are you... worried about that happening?” he asks slowly.

“No,” Yuuri says truthfully. “I know when to stop long before that happens. But… just in case, right?”

“Right,” Victor agrees. He falls quiet for a moment before he squeezes Yuuri’s hand. “Thank you for telling me. I don’t think I would have ever guessed that; my symptoms are so different.”

Yuuri hums in agreement. The conversation dissolves, and they lapse into an awkward but not unbearable silence.

Eventually, the silence is broken when Victor grabs a stack of biscuits and shoves them into Yuuri’s arms.

“These aren’t fit for us. For princes,” Victor says quickly. “But I— We were in a hurry.”

Yuuri looks down at the provisions and just shrugs. 

“I wasn’t exactly expecting a feast,” he says. “That would be pretty excessive.”

“Excessive… Yes,” Victor says, chuckling.

“Why were you in such a rush, though?” Yuuri asks.”Were you afraid of your, uh, _situation_ leaking to the public?”

“No, it wasn’t like that,” Victor explains as he and Yuuri head to their cabin. “Though I suppose there was some fear that you would hear about it before we could get over there and propose. You could have been hidden away. Or if another nation got word of it, someone else could have proposed to you before I got a chance.”

“Unlikely,” Yuuri says. “My marriage prospects were looking bleak.”

“Only because you rejected all the offers you received in your youth. Plenty of nobles were interested in you, and I hear you were offered the hand of both the prince and princess of the Crispino Kingdom,” Victor says. “And even now, I’m sure there are many people who will be heartbroken to hear of our engagement. I know two people in my castle who would have done anything to have you. Well, three, actually. And there’s the Chulanont Kingdom—”

Yuuri has been to the Chulanont Kingdom before, and he remembers his time there fondly. He and Phichit had practiced magic together under the guidance of Celestino Cialdini, a powerful mage originally from the Crispino Kingdom who had taken up residence in Phichit’s country. He’d offered to coach Phichit with his magic, and Phichit, remembering Yuuri’s affinity for magic, invited Yuuri to join them. It was an offer Yuuri couldn’t refuse, and Yuuri will considers Phichit to be the closest thing he has to a friend. But…

“I couldn’t marry Phichit!” Yuuri interjects. “Uh, that is, Prince Phichit already has someone. They’re, well, they’re in love…”

“Seung-gil Lee, yes, I’ve heard,” Victor says. “That doesn’t mean he couldn’t marry you and keep him around as a lover.”

“Uh…” 

“Speaking of lovers...” Victor leans forward. “Have you ever taken any, Yuuri?” he asks.

Yuuri’s face reddens.

“N-No comment!” he chokes out.

“That’s fine. We can talk about me,” Victor says cheerfully. “Let’s see, when I was—”

The thought of Victor taking lovers makes Yuuri’s heart twist painfully. It’s not like it’s a surprise or anything, though. Victor’s gorgeous and powerful. He can have anyone he wants. It doesn’t matter that he’s marrying Yuuri; he can have _anyone._ There’s nothing in the magical oath that says Victor has to care one bit about Yuuri.

Yuuri does not want to hear this. So Yuuri shoves a biscuit into Victor’s mouth.

“Mmf?” Victor somehow manages to mumble confusedly.

“You must be _starving,_ Victor,” Yuuri says. “I am _so_ hungry, and I’m not even the one who needed to rest.” 

Yuuri takes a bite of biscuit just to illustrate his statement. Victor, thankfully, doesn’t seem angry. He takes another biscuit from the pile in Yuuri’s hands, and the two of them eat in silence.

Later, once they’ve eaten and Victor claims to feel better (and looks better, too, with the excess sweat gone from his forehead), he and Yuuri return to the deck.

“Yuuri, will you stand beside me this time?” Victor asks before Yuuri has a chance to reclaim his spot on the ground. “The view is lovely from here.”

Yuuri stares, but it’s not the sea that captures his attention. It’s Victor.The light of sunset in the sky behind him bathes his features in a soft golden light. No painting has ever captured him like this, no medium could capture this angel in human form. “Lovely” hardly covers it.

“Yuuri?” Victor asks softly. “Join your magic with mine?”

He holds out his hand. The ring on his finger gleams where it captures the light.

Yuuri reaches out. He knows neither of them need both hands to cast. And it’s well known that mages working together can amplify their power. It’s a logical decision, that’s all.

“Wow,” Victor breathes. The water below them stills completely, and the splattering of clouds in the sky dissolve into nothingness. “We’re amazing.”

Their magic sizzles around their joined hands.

“We work well together,” Yuuri murmurs.

It’s no surprise to him. He always copied Victor’s magic as a child. Even after everything, Yuuri always admired Victor’s magic, and he spent years trying to mimic his graceful, fluid style. If Yuuri were to stop paying attention, he might not even be able to tell where his magic ends and Victor’s begins.

Victor’s smile is even brighter than the sunset. It’s the first time since they were children that Yuuri’s seen that expression on him.

Yuuri’s heartbeat quickens, and he knows exactly why.


	6. Chapter 6

By the time it’s late enough to go to bed, the ship is so close to the mainland that Yuuri and Victor both decide to just power through. They can sleep in the castle, which will surely be more comfortable, anyway.

In the darkness, it becomes necessary to cast magic to light their way. They have to release each other’s hands to do so, which returns their spells to their original, unboosted power. It’s not as though fluffy clouds and the occasional splash are going to seriously inhibit them now that they’re on the last stretch of their journey, anyway.

The shining capital city of the Nikiforov Kingdom glitters on the horizon, and Yuuri can’t repress a shiver. It’s Victor’s home, not his, and its sight is no comfort to him. The last time Yuuri was here, it was Victor’s 12th birthday and Yuuri had struggled for a month to find him something good enough to match Victor’s gift to him. It wasn’t like he had an engagement ring he could give. So little Yuuri had done the best he could and taken the only piece of jewelry he actually liked, a little gold bracelet that had a toy poodle charm on it, and given it to Victor. Toy poodles had been popular at the Katsuki court at the time, and Yuuri had always enjoyed playing with them. Victor, too, had seemed to enjoy them whenever he came to visit, so Yuuri had thought that it would be an alright gift. And Victor had accepted it with a delighted smile. Yuuri doesn’t think that Victor hated him at that moment, but then again, perhaps the seeds of discontent had already been sown.Even then, Yuuri couldn’t compare to Victor. All Yuuri had to offer was trinkets and his adoration, and Victor was already the adored crown prince of his kingdom. He didn’t need anything that Yuuri could provide. And is it really any different now? What does Yuuri have that Victor doesn’t already possess? Victor is only giving him attention out of necessity for now; if Yuuri wants to keep it, he’d better find a way to keep his interest. Having a decent mage who can boost your magic around is surely an asset… but it is enough? 

(Probably not, but he wishes it would be. Casting magic together with Victor has made Yuuri the happiest he’s felt in a long time.)

“Yuuri?” Victor speaks up. “Are you cold? Or… scared?”

“No,” Yuuri replies, sounding calmer than he feels. “I was just thinking about things.’

“The future?” Victor suggests. He doesn’t wait for Yuuri to answer before he continues. “I’ve been thinking about the future all night. I can’t wait for everyone to see you. Imagine what they’ll think! You’re marrying _me!_

Yuuri can imagine, all right. The weird foreign prince with some allergy against coming to the country is going to become their king-consort. Victor’s people are known to be generally peaceful, but Yuuri wouldn’t blame them for rioting at this.

“You’re bringing a stranger to your court,” Yuuri says, sighing. “They’ll be furious.”

“They won’t,” Victor argues, “but you shouldn’t worry about that, anyway.”

When he turns to look at Yuuri, the light of his magic makes his eyes seem to sparkle.

“I swear I’ll never let anything bad happen to you,” he promises. “I’ll protect you, Yuuri.”

“I—”

A pulse of pain pierces Yuuri so suddenly that he has to cut off his magic. Without it, his own face is plunged into darkness, leaving only Victor to illuminate the space between them.

_(“You’re my fiancé now, so I will definitely, absolutely protect you from everything,”)_

How is Yuuri supposed to believe a promise like that? How is Yuuri supposed to believe _anything_ Victor promises? Victor used to promise him all kinds of things, and the only one he ever kept was the one he’s magically forced to.

Yuuri _wants_ to believe Victor now. This isn’t a game, and Victor will soon be king. Yuuri at least trusts him to fulfill his kingly duties. Protecting Yuuri would have to be part of that.

But Yuuri does not trust Victor with his feelings (he doesn’t even trust _himself_ with his feelings), 

A warm hand presses against his forehead, and suddenly Victor’s eyes are gazing straight into his own.

“Your skin isn’t hot,” Victor murmurs, sounding relieved.

“It’s not magical exhaustion,” Yuuri says irritatedly. “I was just surprised to hear you swear so lightly. Isn’t that what got us into this mess in the first place?”

“I wasn’t speaking lightly,” Victor insists. His eyes _do_ look sincere, though perhaps it’s a trick of his magic, which still glows softly between their chests. “I meant everything I promised you, Yuuri. Should I swear you another magical oath?”

“No!” Yuuri exclaims. 

If anything, Victor’s words now sound even less genuine. What kind of fool would risk their life promising to prevent anything bad from happening to someone? It’s an impossible feat, so it would be certain death.

“I want to trust you,” Yuuri says honestly. “But if you blurt out things like that without thinking, you can’t expect me to believe that you’re serious.”

Victor steps back, sighing heavily. The light of his magic goes out, and Yuuri’s eyes, unaccustomed to the dark, can barely see the outline of his figure.

“I guess it was too much, wasn’t it?” Victor mutters.

Yuuri doesn’t answer. Instead, he watches as the lights of the harbor grow larger as the ship draws nearer. Without their magical lights, the port city seems to glow even brighter.

“Victor,” Yuuri says quietly. “Whether you like it or not, I have to rely on you until I get my bearings. I know nothing about this place. I haven’t been here in 14 years.”

“Well… everything’s different,” Victor says slowly. “It’s grown and changed. I don’t know if it’s for the better or not, but it’s certainly different from the capital I knew as a child.”

“Yes, our capital grew in a similar manner,” Yuuri comments.

“I noticed” Victor admits, gazing out at the harbor. “But, Yuuri, you won’t be wrong to rely on me. I’m not just going to lead you to the heart of an unfamiliar land and leave you there.”

“I know that,” Yuuri says gently. “Because I believe that you are a good person, Victor.”

He can’t see Victor’s face, but he hears a sharp exhale of breath. 

“Thank you,” Victor whispers.

Their ship is welcomed into the harbor then, and anything else Yuuri might like to say dies before it can reach his throat.


	7. Chapter 7

Victor’s castle is more familiar than Yuuri thinks he likes.

The lavishly-decorated castle is just the same as he remembers, though it seems smaller (unsurprisingly, given Yuuri’s significant height increase since he was eight). It feels different now that he isn’t running around, chasing Victor down the halls of his own home. It hadn’t been very princely of them, but they were too young to care that much.

Of course it has to feel different now. It is different. Victor is solemn and regal as he presses forward, a single hand resting on Yuuri’s back. Whether the hand is meant to steer Yuuri around or to show possession is unclear, but nevertheless Yuuri is grateful for its presence. The firm hand steels his nerves, and Yuuri is able to school his features into the kind of polite expression that won’t get him immediately kicked out of the kingdom for insolence.

“It would be proper for you to meet my father right now,” Victor tells him quietly. “But I’m not sure he’s fit for company at the moment.”

Yuuri glances at Victor from the corner of his eye. His face is impassive, and Yuuri has no idea how he feels about his father’s imminent death. Is Victor close with him? Was he close with his mother, who passed away five years previously? Yuuri has no idea of what Victor thinks of his family, no idea of who his friends are, no idea of what and who Victor considers important.

“I’m sorry,” is all that Yuuri says out loud.

“Perhaps you can meet him soon. For now, I’ll introduce you to Yakov. He’s—”

“Your magic tutor,” Yuuri remembers. Half of Yuuri’s early magical experiences were a result of Victor teaching him, which means that they were indirectly a result of Yakov teaching Victor.

“Oh,” Victor says in surprise. “Yes, he was. He’s… a lot more than that, though. Uh, I mean that he deals with most of our internal affairs. I’m sure he’ll be pleased to meet you.”

In fact, Yuuri doesn’t think he’s ever seen anyone _less_ pleased to meet him.

Yakov’s face is respectful, of course, and he greets Yuuri politely. But Yuuri can tell warm politeness from disdainful politeness, a distinction made even more obvious by the difference in which he speaks to VIctor. Same obligatory politeness, but with a world of emotion underlying his words.

Yakov clearly tries his best to avoid talking about Yuuri. A cold “So you got him” is all he says to Victor. He doesn’t even refer to Yuuri by name once he’s been greeted. 

It’s fair, Yuuri supposes. He realizes that his refusal to enter the Nikiforov Kingdom for so many years was terribly impolite and an awful slight against them. He just never thought that his actions were going to catch up with him like this.

Nevertheless, Yuuri listens attentively as Victor gives a brief report of his trip, as well as a general overview of the arrangement between the Nikiforov and Katsuki Kingdoms. Yakov, for his part, was obviously prepared for such an outcome, because he immediately snaps orders to several attendants. Yuuri isn’t looking forward to the hundreds of awful meetings he’ll inevitably have to deal with, but it seems that for the time being, he and Victor get to leave everything to the castle staff.

It’s fortunate, because all Yuuri really want to do right now is sleep. As much magical stamina as he has, he’s still been casting for almost a whole day with only food breaks in between. Added to his normal human need for sleep, Yuuri’s tired enough that he feels like he could comfortably fall asleep right there on the floor he’s standing on.

Either Yuuri’s fatigue accidentally comes through in his body language or Victor is feeling the same way, because the second he’s done discussing official business, he lets out an exaggerated yawn.

“I think my fiancé and I should retire for the day,” he says with a grin. 

The shift to informality is sudden, and Yuuri supposes that the two must be on great terms for Victor to pull something like this.

“Of course, your highness,” Yakov replies. “And does your… _fiancé_... require accommodations?”

“Ah…” Victor turns to Yuuri questioningly. And though he doesn’t say it out loud, Yuuri can hear his question loud and clear: “Can I sleep with you tonight, Yuuri?”

It wouldn’t be hard to ask for a private room. Yakov would set it up for him, and Victor… Well, Victor is surely used to Yuuri keeping him out by now.

But Yuuri can’t just run away from Victor forever. He might be able to avoid him for the time being, but what about when they’re wed? There’s no way that Yuuri can avoid Victor’s chambers forever.

Moreover… Yuuri doesn’t think he’s quite ready to be alone. His days have been full of stress (albeit not solely the bad kind) lately, and Yuuri just wants to rest. At least if he’s with Victor, he won’t have to worry about… sleeping wrong, or… walking into the wrong person’s room, or… something.

And Victor did say that Yuuri could rely on him.

“Thank you Lord Feltsman, but I would like to remain in Victor’s care for the time being,” he says. 

Victor smiles at him, but as he turns back to Yakov, his lips twist into something teasing.

“You know, we didn’t get _any_ sleep last night,” Victor says playfully. “I don’t think we’ll be able to do anything today, so don’t call on us!”

“Oh, Vitya…” Yakov mutters, placing a hand over his temple exasperatedly. 

Yuuri flushes beet-red, but Victor ushers him out of the room before he can say anything (and the way he cheerfully waves goodbye to Yakov certainly doesn’t help anything).

“Sorry, I had to rub it in his face a little,” Victor explains as they make their way deeper into the castle. “He was so negative before I left. He didn’t think there was any hope of you even talking to me.”

Yuuri winces. If he’d gotten his way, he _would_ have hidden away from Victor. 

(For once, Yuuri isn’t entirely displeased to not have gotten his way.)

“You are… close with him,” he murmurs. “Is it because you’ve known him your whole life?”

“Oh, yes, Yakov’s served the royal family for ages. His father before him, too,” Victor says. “He’s been like a parent to me.”

Funny, because Yuuri would certainly never imply that he had just had a night of non-stop sex to anyone he considered a parent. Maybe it’s cultural differences, or maybe it’s just _Victor_ differences, but Yuuri supposes it doesn’t matter that much. In the end, everyone’s going to assume that he and Victor are having sex, anyway.

“Am I going to leave your room with a limp, then?” Yuuri asks with a smirk. The idea isn’t unappealing. After all, Yuuri’s unfortunate sexual awakening was to a portrait of Victor sitting on a throne, one leg propped up over the other in a position of power.

Victor splutters as he withdraws his hand from Yuuri’s back. There’s a faint blush dusting his cheeks, too, Yuuri notices with a sense of smug glee. It serves Victor right for embarrassing Yuuri in the first place.

“I-I don’t think I have the energy for that,” Victor says a bit shakily. “You could always fake a limp, though... Or I could.”

Yuuri can’t help but laugh.

When they make it to Victor’s room, Victor immediately throws himself onto one side of his bed. 

“Soft,” he murmurs sleepily.

Yuuri’s sure that it _is_ soft, and the bed does seem to be calling him, but…

Yuuri needs a minute.

“Ah, Victor, I’m going to wash up first,” he says quietly. 

Victor hums his agreement, but just before Yuuri slips into the bathroom, his head shoots up.

“Wait, Yuuri,” he says, blinking slowly. “There are spells. To fall asleep quickly. I just thought… I should tell you. They’re on the pillows.”

“Oh,” Yuuri says, and then his mouth twitches upward. “Is that why you suddenly can’t keep your eyes open?”

“Yesss,” Victor says, forcing his eyes back open.

“Go to sleep, then,” Yuuri says dismissively. 

“Nooo,” Victor whines, but his eyes fall closed again.

Yuuri shuts the bathroom door behind him.

Seeing Victor like that is making his heart do funny things, and Yuuri simultaneously wants to curl up next to Victor _and_ run far, far away.

Maybe it’s the bed. The last time the two of them were on a bed together, things didn’t turn out so well.

Yuuri looks down at the ring on his finger. It fits perfectly, just as it was spelled to, and yet there’s a sense of wrongness. He’s so used to it looking like steel that the bright pink jewels now come across as garish. His finger isn’t used to feeling so heavy, and his neck isn’t used to feeling so light.

It’s ironic now that the very promise Victor made when he gave him this ring, the promise that ruined them, is now the promise that’s giving them a second chance. “I won’t marry anybody but you.” Oh, how little they understood about the world as children.

But it’s not all on Victor. Had he been asked, Yuuri would have gladly made the same promise at the time. Even back then, Yuuri had loved Victor. It wasn’t romantic love, for he hadn’t yet understood such things, but it was different from the love he held for his family or other childhood playmates.

That love has never really gone away. It had fallen into a stasis of sorts over the years, a persistent ache that was never too loud to distract himself from, but Yuuri’s heart had never once stopped longing for Victor.

It’s no different now, and it’s terrifying. Just like when they were kids, Yuuri’s feelings are stronger than they should be. Stronger than whatever Victor feels, even if it’s clear enough that Victor holds him in positive regard now. Maybe they can be okay now, as adults. But what if Yuuri asks for too much again? 

Victor could break the engagement at any time. He doesn’t need Yuuri to survive. But if Yuuri loses Victor again, he thinks _he_ might not survive.

With a sigh, Yuuri splashes a bit of water on his face. It doesn’t make him feel any better, but at least he can pretend to wash away his problems.

At least Victor is fast asleep when Yuuri returns, so Yuuri doesn’t have to face him _and_ his own relentless emotions.

He sits on the bed, but he doesn’t immediately place his head on the pillows. Instead, he takes the time to observe Victor in his slumber. He looks vulnerable the way he’s curled up, and Yuuri has a strong urge to stroke his hair soothingly. The urge only grows stronger when Victor lets out a whimper and rolls over to face him. Yuuri can see that Victor’s face in contorted uncomfortably, and it occurs to him that he isn’t the only one who must be having a stressful time lately.

“Shh, shh. Sleep more peacefully, Victor” Yuuri whispers when Victor makes another pained sound. “What was it that you said to me? You deserve the best dreams?”

“Yuuri,” Victor mumbles..

Yuuri inhales suddenly at the sound of his name. He doesn’t like it like this, coming straight out of Victor’s nightmares.

“Don’t go,” Victor continues in a moan.

Yuuri frowns. Just what is Victor dreaming about?

“Where do you think I’m going?” he asks gently. 

“Don’t go,” Victor repeats.

Yuuri sighs, though he didn’t really expect an answer from the unconscious man.

“I need you,” Victor whispers. “I need you. I need you.”

It’s just a dream, Yuuri reminds himself. Nevertheless, hearing Victor say something like this sounds more like something Yuuri himself would dream up. And combined with the tortured look on Victor’s face, Yuuri can’t hold himself back anymore.

“Shh, Victor. I’m right here, aren’t I?” Yuuri murmurs. He caresses Victor’s cheek as carefully as he can, hoping to soothe without waking him up. “You can rest now.”

Victor exhales slowly, and his breathing grows steadier.

Yuuri doesn’t lie down until he’s sure that Victor’s completely out of the nightmare. As his head hits the pillow, he briefly debates moving over, leaving more space between them. But he’s close enough to feel Victor’s body heat, and it’s so comfortable, and he’s so tired, and the spell’s working, and…

Yuuri falls asleep.


	8. Chapter 8

The Nikiforov Court, Yuuri soon finds out, functions much like the Katsuki Court, just with different people playing the roles.

Besides Yakov, who heads internal affairs, and Lilia, who heads foreign affairs, there’s Georgi Popovich, a noble the same age as Victor whose talent lies in music and acting; Mila Babicheva, a knight with spirit as fiery as her hair and the skill with a sword to match; Christophe Giacometti (who goes by Chris among his friends, of whom Victor is among), a mage with talent that could rival Victor’s; and Yuri Plisetsky (long ago dubbed “Yurio” by Victor for some reason), a 16-year old mage still in training whose goal in life seems to be beating Victor in a fight.

(There are others, of course, but these are the people Victor claims he actually likes.)

And as with any good court, it’s full of gossip. Yakov and Lilia divorced a year ago but keep shooting each other amorous glances. The girl Georgi was courting dumped him for a foreign baker. Princess Sara of the Crispino Kingdom has her sights on wooing Mila. Chris met a man he’s thinking about settling down with. Yurio has some mysterious connection with the crown prince of the Altin Kingdom. Or so the rumors say. Who knows what’s true and what isn’t? Certainly not Yuuri, who, even after being in Victor’s castle for four months, still sometimes feels like people are making fun of him.

Because he knows the rumors about _him_ definitely aren’t true. Yuuri’s heard one correct rumor: he was completely shocked when Victor asked him to marry him. The rest are completely ridiculous. Yuuri’s an evil sorcerer who bewitched Victor into marrying him so he could take the crown for himself. Victor is a shapeshifter and was blackmailed into marriage when Yuuri caught him changing form. Yuuri is the real heir to the Katsuki crown and they’re getting married to unite the kingdoms into a super empire. Yuuri is actually Eros, the god of love that Victor used to write poetry to. Where do people get these ideas?

(The thing about Victor writing poetry is true, though. When Yuuri asked, Victor admitted that he’d written 15 volumes about passionate love and dedicated them to Eros. He’d also mentioned having written 26 volumes of “Agape” poetry, but those ones were apparently all tragic.)

Fortunately, now that August is nearing its end and Yuuri’s presence has become more familiar to the Nikiforov Court, at least the most extreme rumors about him are dying out. In their place come whispers of the impending royal marriage. They say Victor wants a winter wedding. Yuuri knows for sure that this is true, because he’s the one suggested it to Victor in the first place. Far enough away that Yuuri won’t be a stranger, but close enough that the kingdom won’t be left in suspense for too long. 

( _Close enough so I don’t screw everything up,_ he doesn’t say.)

It will fall just between Yuuri’s birthday and Victor’s, which means they can basically get away with having a whole month of celebrations. The public will be happy about it, Yuuri is sure.

Yuuri ends up fielding a lot of questions about his food preferences, and his color preferences, and his music preferences, and if he’s planning on gaining or losing weight any time before the wedding, and if there are any important traditions of the Katsuki Kingdom that he wants incorporated into the ceremony.

It’s all very exhausting, and sometimes Yuuri just wants to hide away from the world. Victor is surprisingly helpful with that, showing Yuuri all the best spots in the castle to slip away to. Yuuri’s favorite spot is an out-of-the way balcony on the upper floor of the library. It’s hard enough to find as it is; add a simple concealment spell and nobody can find him at all.

Well, nobody except Victor. It’s his spot, after all. Victor confesses that he’s spent many an hour in reflection on this very balcony over the years. It’s a little surprising to think of Victor going from the boisterous child he used to be to the introspective man he is today, but on the other hand, Yuuri can easily picture a younger Victor sneaking off alone to lean off the railing of the balcony, his long hair streaming behind him as he stares off into the eastern sky. Victor always used to be, and still is, fond of dramatics. If he weren’t the prince, Yuuri thinks, he could have become a good actor alongside Georgi.

Yuuri doesn’t mind it when Victor joins him on the balcony, though, or anywhere else. Everyone else tends to aggravate his anxiety, but Victor is different. Maybe it’s because Victor always lets Yuuri open up first.

“How do you do that?” Yuuri mumbles to himself. A book of magical theory lies open in his lap, but he hasn’t been paying attention to it for quite some time.

Victor, too, has a book in his lap, but considering that his eyes are closed, Yuuri knows he hasn’t been reading. Perhaps he’s trying to magically meditate. The smile on his face tells Yuuri he’s comfortable, but evidently not so comfortable as to fall asleep, because his eyes flutter open at the sound of Yuuri’s voice.

“Do what, Yuuri?” he asks softly.

Yuuri blushes faintly. He hadn’t actually meant to be heard, but he probably should have expected it. Victor’s senses are finely tuned.

“Just, you know, meet me where I am,” Yuuri says, waving his hands around in a vague gesture. “You don’t act like I’m weak, and you do things like… like this, coming out here with me. It never bothers you? Being… Being…”

Yuuri trails off, because he isn’t quite sure what Victor is being. This is far beyond the bounds of what would be required of him, as a prince or as Yuuri’s fiancé.

“Nobody thinks you’re weak, Yuuri. We’re all impressed with your attitude. Nobody could do better than you.” Victor says, and his voice is filled with such sincerity that even Yuuri finds himself believing it. Yuuri’s heard tales of princes and princesses backing out of engagements after just weeks with their intended spouses, some even going so far as to flee the country in the middle of the night. Yuuri is stressed, sure, but he’d never go that far.

He’d never do anything like that to Victor. He’d never betray the country that so readily welcomed him, either. He’ll fight with everything his has for both Victor and the kingdom they will soon run together.

Victor falls quiet, but he looks like he still wants to say something. Yuuri waits, tilting his head questioningly.

“What is it that you want, Yuuri?” Victor says after a moment. “I will do anything you want. I will _be_ anything you want. Just tell me.”

Yuuri doesn’t like the way he says it. Victor sounds completely serious, but nonetheless, the words ring with falseness. He shouldn’t suggest that he’s willing to literally always lie if Yuuri tells him to. _That’s_ not what Yuuri want to hear from him at all.

“The only thing I want you to be is yourself, Victor,” he says with a frown. “I don’t want to see you lie to me. Don’t sit there and pretend, or play with my emotions. Just be you.”

Victor stares forward.

“Is that really what you want?” he asks in a low voice. “You’ve seen the man I am, Yuuri. I can never tell when I’m going too far, when I’m being too much…”

“You’re never too much,” Yuuri interrupts. “Not to me. I like you, VIctor. I’m not afraid of who you are.”

When Victor’s eyes lock with his own, they appear darker than usual. The dim evening light forces his pupils to expand, and Yuuri feels like he could almost fall into their depths.

“If that’s how you feel,” Victor says softly, “then I will show you all of me.”

All of Victor.

Yes, _this_ is what Yuuri really wants.


	9. Chapter 9

Yuuri’s pretty sure that most couples’ first kiss would not happen in front of hundreds of nobles and merchants. But then, he supposes that he and Victor are really not like most couples at all.

It starts like this: in the middle of October, the castle opens invites merchants from all corners of the kingdom to peddle their wares, arrange contracts, and generally meet for discussion, all in one place for one week of easy dealing. This happens every year, and Victor has basically organized the event himself since he was a teenager. This is, however, the first time he’s doing it as his country’s de facto ruler (Victor’s father is unconscious in magically-induced stasis for the time being. The hope is that he’ll survive to see his son’s wedding this way. They won’t be able to maintain the spells indefinitely, though, and everyone knows. Victor hasn’t said it out loud, but Yuuri can tell from the way his grip tightens around Yuuri’s arm every time the matter comes up that he’s having a difficult time).

Victor is thrilled about it. He tells Yuuri it’s the most exciting event they have all year (“though not this year, Yuuri; this year that title will go to our wedding”). Yurio tells him that Victor is usually _not_ thrilled about it, and that he’s never looked so happy to be doing work in the entire time Yurio has known him (“he’s just trying to impress you; I think I’m going to be sick”), but Yuuri doubts that’s actually true. If Victor looked unhappy to be doing work, it was probably because Yurio was bothering him. Yuuri doesn’t particularly want to get yelled at by the little lord, though, so he keeps that thought to himself (sure, he could always play the prince card and order the teenager to back down, but that’s really no fun at all. In truth, a good portion of the entertainment at the castle comes directly or indirectly from Yurio’s antics. Yuuri’s heard that Georgi’s thinking about writing his own opera based on him.).

Alas, something bad was bound to happen soon. Things have just been going too well lately. Things between Yuuri and Victor, things between Yuuri and the Nikiforov Kingdom, and possibly things between Victor and the Nikiforov Kingdom if Yurio is to be believed. When things go too well, that’s when trouble strikes, Yuuri has learned. 

And there is always trouble when so many people gather about. Victor’s country is a peaceful, prosperous one, and citizen morale is high. Nevertheless, it’s impossible to please everybody, and there are always malcontents to be found. The castle is heavily guarded, Victor himself is heavily guarded (Yuuri has to step away from Victor just to get enough space to breathe, though even then he spots a few guards trailing him). Even so, accidents happen.

Yuuri should have suspected the fur traders. They had been displeased to find out that the Katsuki Kingdom is now permitted to buy all its furs at a reduced rate as part of the bargain for Yuuri’s hand. Whether they were angrier at Yuuri or Victor or Lilia or the entirety of the Katsuki Kingdom for this is irrelevant, but their ultimate target is Victor himself.

Merchants tend to be unskilled mages, adept at only those spells which are necessary their profession, spells that relate to the preservation and transport of their wares. Even so, transport magic can be dangerous if it happens to involve the transport of thousands of shards of glass (poisoned, someone tells him later) through the air at a high velocity directly at the kingdom’s crown prince.

Yuuri sees red.

Everything seems to happen at once. Screams echo through the room, Victor’s head whips around suddenly, every guard in the room throws up a shield to protect their prince, but all of that is unnecessary, because the glass vanishes into nothingness midair, and the culprit is frozen, unmoving, in a block of ice in the middle of the room.

The tingling in Yuuri’s hands is the only evidence that he’d even used his magic. Well, that and the room full of witnesses. Yuuri can feel their eyes on him, some surprised, some impressed, some terrified, but all scrutinizing.

Yuuri takes a few deep breaths. He isn’t going to cower for them. He’s spent a lifetime honing his magical skills, he could have challenged the best in the world, and he’s not going to run away from this now. 

“You’d better hurry up and get him if you don’t want him frostbitten,” Yuuri announces, his words ringing out too loudly in the hushed room.

Yuuri doesn’t actually know if they get him or not. He neither knows nor cares about the merchant’s fate, not when Victor is crossing the room, a frantic pace to his steps.

Yuuri’s heartbeat hammers in his chest. Did he do alright? Is Victor pleased? Angry? About to send him off to jail to await trial for freezing a man?

Yuuri assumes the first, because Victor throws his arms around Yuuri’s shoulders and pulls him up into a kiss, right there in front of everyone.

It’s not very appropriate, but Yuuri can’t bring himself to care. You know what else is not appropriate? Flinging glass at Victor, who hadn’t even done anything wrong.

Possessiveness surges within him, and his hands curl in Victor’s hair as he presses the larger man closer. Yuuri knows that people are looking at them. How could they not look at them, the royal couple passionately kissing in public. 

Let them see. They need to see. Nobody else can touch Victor. 

“You saved me,” Victor breathes when they’re forced to break for air.

His smile is warm. Yuuri thinks his own smile probably looks much the same.

“I wanted to protect you.,” Yuuri says. A childhood promise echoes in his ears, and he realizes that those words he spoke back then have always held true in his heart.

_(“I’ll protect you, too, Vitya,”)_


	10. Chapter 10

The thing is, kissing Victor should have made everything better, made whatever has been growing between them clearer and stronger, but it _doesn’t._

Maybe if they hadn’t immediately had to deal with the aftermath of the attack, Yuuri’s thoughts wouldn’t have had time to fester. But somewhere between calming down the castle’s guests, hunting down information about the attacker, and generally putting on a façade of control all the time, Yuuri’s thoughts turned from _I will keep him safe, I love him so much_ to _what the ever-loving fuck happened out there?_

And when a week passes without them even talking about it, Yuuri’s feelings only tangle further. It feels like there’s a knot in his heart and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

Except he kind of does.

He can talk to Victor about it, right? Victor cares about him. Victor has accepted everything Yuuri has told him before.

When Yuuri opens up, Victor meets him where he is. He always does.

So Yuuri musters up all of his courage and one evening, before either of them can curl up in bed, he speaks.

“Victor…” he starts. It’s hard. His heart aches. “Why did you kiss me? The other day, after everything… Was it just gratitude?”

Victor sits beside him on the bed, close enough that their arms brush together. He gazes at him with what Yuuri thinks must surely be the softest expression known to mankind.

“Why do you think I kissed you, Yuuri?” he asks in a voice as sweet and soothing as honey.

Yuuri can’t look at him. He closes his eyes.

“I… I think…” Yuuri begins, choking on his words. “I-I would say it’s because you love me,” he admits, “but... I’ve been wrong about that before.”

Soft fingers stroke his cheek, and Yuuri blinks open his eyes to watch Victor caress him.

“It _is_ because I love you,” Victor says tenderly. “You were never wrong. I’ve loved you my whole life.”

Yuuri’s breath hitches.

Why would Victor say that? It’s just not true. Yuuri doesn’t want to hear lies, not from Victor. Not again.

“You don’t have to say that just because I wish it were true,” Yuuri says, pushing Victor’s hand off of his face. “No matter how you feel about me now, it doesn’t change the fact that you hated me once, didn’t you? You… You don’t have to pretend otherwise.”

Tears well up in his eyes, and Yuuri is simultaneously angry at and disappointed in himself. He should have let this go long ago. He should at least have let it go when he started spending time with Victor again. They’re so close now, and Victor might even love him, and Yuuri’s going to ruin everything again with his stupid, childish fears.

“No, no, I’ve never hated you,” Victor says, distress entering his tone. “What did I do to make you think that?”

Yuuri can feel the tears spilling down his cheeks, and he knows he must look hideous. But if his pain is going to come bursting out like this, then Yuuri’s going to makes sure it all comes out. Victor can take him or leave him after it’s over, but while he’s here, Yuuri wants him to know the truth.

“It was the letters, Victor, don’t you remember? When we were young?” Yuuri chokes out. “I knew you were getting more and more upset, but I couldn’t do anything. And in your final one, you said all these awful things, and I… I couldn’t stand it! It sounds so stupid now, but I felt betrayed!”

“Yuuri, I—”

“No, I’m not done!” Yuuri interrupts. “I adored you so much, and I wanted to spend my whole life with you… And then you told me I was being too serious, and that I was making you mad, and what I was I supposed to think other than that you hated me?”

Something wet falls onto his shirt, but it’s not his own tears this time.

“W-Why are _you_ crying?” Yuuri asks, horrified at the tears falling from the edges of Victor’s eyes.

“Because you never told me any of that,” Victor says, his voice breaking. “You stopped replying to me letters, you avoided me, and you called me “Prince Victor” like _you_ were the one who hated _me._ But you never told me that.”

“I-I… didn’t…” Yuuri admits. “I couldn’t… I didn’t know how to face you, so I didn’t.”

“I thought it was because I scared you by proposing to you,” Victor says as he wipes at his eyes. “I know it was a lot to handle. Who proposes to an eight-year old? Only a stupid, irresponsible prince, right? But I just wanted to keep you so badly, Yuuri… and I didn’t know how.”

“You... wanted to keep me…” Yuuri repeats slowly.

“I did! You were, you are, the most precious thing in the world to me!” Victor insists. “But… But all I did was lose you… I’m so, so sorry, Yuuri. I didn’t know how to do anything but lose you.”

“But you found me again,” Yuuri says, grabbing Victor’s right hand with his own. He raises them up so their rings glitter in the lamplight. “I love you, and… and you said you love me.”

“I do,” Victor affirms. His voice strains as he continues. “But, Yuuri, after all this time… I still don’t know what to do. I’m so afraid of losing you.” His hand clutches Yuuri’s like a lifeline. “Please, don’t let me lose you. I’ll give you everything I have, Yuuri. What is it that you need? ”

For a moment, Yuuri had thought he might be able to stop crying, but Victor’s words send another wave of tears cascading down his cheeks. He doesn’t want to lose Victor. He doesn’t want to be lost. 

Right now, all he needs is Victor. His whole body cries out for comfort, and Victor _is_ offering him anything…

“Vitya,” he sobs as he pushes himself into Victor’s chest. “Hold me.”

Victor keeps their hand clasped together, but he uses his other arm to clutch Yuuri closer to him. It’s a hug that’s 14 years overdue, and Yuuri feels relief like he’s never known before.

It’s only when Victor buries his face into the side of his neck that Yuuri realizes just how much Victor must have needed this, too. Yuuri lets his unoccupied hand snake into Victor’s hair, brushing through it with long, soothing strokes. Victor, meanwhile, rubs small circles into Yuuri’s back.

It’s the safest Yuuri has ever felt.

“Will you say my name again, Yuuri?” Victor murmurs after they’ve been sitting like this for a while. “Just like you used to…”

Yuuri smiles, even though Victor can’t see it.

“Vitya,” he whispers. His mouth is conveniently close to Victor’s ear. “Vitya, I love you.”

Yuuri can’t tell if it’s his or Victor’s heart that’s racing, but he relishes the feeling all the same.


	11. Chapter 11

Yuuri and Victor’s newfound intense inseparability soon leads to new rumors around the castle. Yuuri and VIctor spiked each other’s drinks with love potions. They’ve been cursed to have to stay within two feet of each other. They’re constantly touching in order to amplify their magic so they can cast a mysterious spell over the whole kingdom.

The truth is simple. Yuuri doesn’t want to leave Victor’s side, and Victor doesn’t want to leave his. Yuuri has wanted this for so long that he thinks Victor could completely drown him in his attention and it _still_ wouldn’t be enough.

Victor, too, can’t seem to get enough of Yuuri. Neither his hands nor his eyes can stay off of him, and Yuuri feels a surge of delight every time he turns to gaze at his fiancé only to find Victor already staring at him like he’s the only thing worth looking at amidst all the castle’s luxuries.

(“You stole his tragic expression from us all,” Georgi sighs to Yuuri. “It was such a gorgeous image of longing, too. Ah, but love paints an even more beautiful picture on his face, does it not? What I’d give to capture that look myself!”)

Weeks pass in in a whirl of bliss.

As the end of November approaches, Yuuri notices with a hint of surprise that thinking about his birthday no longer fills him with dread.

(Well, that’s not _entirely_ true, but this time it’s from his usual apprehension acting up, not from the pain of reliving Victor’s loss. The injury was deep, but Victor’s love is deeper, and with every kiss, every touch, every kind word they share, Yuuri can feel his old wounds finally scarring over.)

Something occurs to him one evening as he sits in Victor’s arms and mindlessly plays with their rings. He giggles softly, and he beams up at his fiancé when he leans down to kiss Yuuri’s forehead.

“Hey, Vitya,” he says. “You never actually broke off our engagement when we were kids,” he continues in a happy tone to let Victor know he’s not upset.

“I didn’t…” Victor agrees, though he’s obviously wary of the touchy subject. Yuuri cuddles into his chest.

“Well, I didn’t either,” Yuuri says firmly. “And do you know what that means? Our anniversary is coming up.”

Yuuri tilts his head up to look at Victor’s face, which is set in a stunned expression. Slowly, it melts into a pleased smile.

“Our anniversary is on your birthday,” he says warmly. An amused glint enters his eyes, and he presses another kiss to Yuuri’s forehead. “It was hard enough finding you one gift, Yuuri. What am I going to do for your anniversary gift? There’s so little time!”

Yuuri laughs.

“Why don’t you stick to worrying about my birthday? You’ll have your hands full _all_ day,” Yuuri suggests teasingly. “But at night… hmm… I’ll have to give _you_ a present, won’t I?”

“It would only be right, my love,” Victor agrees with a smirk. “Are you going to give me something exciting?”

“Maybe,” Yuuri says, fluttering his eyelashes in false innocence. “Unless you’d rather wait for our wedding night?”

Yuuri can feel Victor’s heart speed up.

“Yuuri…” he says breathlessly. “Yuuri, I would… I… I’ll strip _right now,_ if you want…”

Yuuri smothers his laughter with Victor’s arm.

“It’s your _present,_ Vitya,” he teases. “You have to _wait._ ”

Victor squeezes him tightly.

“I can wait, Yuuri,” he says softly, “because we have _forever._ ”

(Yuuri feels a rush of desire so powerful that he almost reconsiders the stripping thing right then and there)

Of course, wanting to have sex with Victor and being terrified of it are not mutually exclusive feelings, and a large part of Yuuri is still yelling at him that this is all a mistake and Victor can’t possibly love him _that_ much and Yuuri is surely, surely, asking for more than Victor wants to give, but… 

“I love you more than anything, Yuuri,” Victor tells him. “I would give you everything. There’s nothing in the universe as important to me as you,” he says as he presses kisses into Yuuri’s neck.

Yuuri feels just the same. And he doesn’t want to run away from the strength of his feelings anymore.

Yuuri’s birthday is spent in celebration, with a feast held out to the masses. Yuuri spends the day by Victor’s side, smiling at all the people who’ve come to see their prince’s consort. As soon as night falls, though, he and Victor retire in private, and Yuuri gets to have the celebration he truly desires.

He’s more than a little embarrassed to walk out of the bathroom in the outfit he’s designed just for this occasion, but from the way Victor’s eyes widen, he assumes his choice is appreciated. The skintight material is black save for the jewels that glimmer across the side, and if anybody but Victor were to ever see him like this, Yuuri thinks he would spontaneously combust out of horror. The material was conjured with his magic, and Yuuri doubts that it will hold up for very long.

Luckily, losing his clothing happens to be the goal tonight.

“Vitya,” he purrs. “Hurry up and unwrap your present.”

Victor’s adoring eyes darken ever-so slightly.

“Happy anniversary, Yuuri,” Victor murmurs. In a flash, his mouth captures Yuuri’s own. He moans in delight, his hands already trailing down Yuuri’s body.

Yuuri, much like the outfit he’s wearing, dissolves at the touch.


	12. Chapter 12

Victor and Yuuri’s wedding is expected to be the event of the century, or at least that’s what Yuuri overhears a couple of nobles saying to each other.

“It’s going to be the most overdramatic event of the century,” Yurio snorts when nobody else is around.

(Personally, Yuuri thinks this is very unfair. The king of the Leroy Kingdom was much more over-the-top with his wedding. Yuuri hadn’t attended, but he heard from Phichit that it ended with Jean-Jacques and his wife leading all the guests in a song he had written himself, about himself.)

Yuuri’s family arrives a week in advance, and it’s only when he sees their faces that it hits him just how much he missed having them around.

His mother and father embrace him just as warmly as they always have, and praise—praise for him, for Victor, for the Nikiforov Kingdom—spills out from their lips in a tone that is much too joyous to be a mere nicety.

“We were worried, you know,” Mari tells him in a hushed voice. “None of us thought this was a good idea. Victor seemed too suspicious, showing up out of the blue with a crazy story about needing to marry you.”

“It was really surprising,” Yuuri admits.

“Yeah, and then you went and agreed, It was so out of character for you, I thought you might be feeling pressured into it.”

Yuuri frowns.

“Vitya would never do that,” he insists. Victor is not the kind of man who would coerce anyone into a marriage. Even if his oath had been more specific and not marrying Yuuri would have definitively killed him, Yuuri is sure that Victor still wouldn’t have pressed him if Yuuri had been set against it. 

(But the thought of Victor dying is so incredibly painful to consider that Yuuri has to immediately pull himself out of his thoughts. It’s a good thing he isn’t alone, or it would be much harder.)

“Yeah, I’m not talking about your darling; I’m talking about you,” Mari corrects. “Sometimes you acted like you owed me and our parents for just existing. I was worried you were trying to sell yourself off out of a sense of obligation or something dumb like that.”

“I…” Yuuri hesitates. 

The truth is, he’s always felt a huge sense of gratitude to his family for letting him do his own thing. They never forced him to act a certain way, and they always encouraged him to focus on his magic, the one thing he’s actually good at. They didn’t even protest when he wanted to go off to the Chulanont Kingdom on his own. And if at any point they had asked him to sell himself off to another kingdom to help them, Yuuri doesn’t think he would have been able to say no. 

“It wasn’t like that, though,” Yuuri says honestly. He hadn’t actually cared about what the Katsuki Kingdom stood to gain. He only wanted the chance to have even a moment of Victor’s time.

And look what he has now. _Forever._ He couldn’t keep the smile from spreading across his face if he tried.

“Yes, I can see that,” Mari says fondly. “We can all see. You’ve never looked this happy before.”

“Ah? Uh…” Yuuri stutters, a blush rising to his cheeks. “I am happy! Not that I wasn’t happy before; I was, but I… It’s different because…”

“Relax, little brother,” Mari says with a laugh. “We aren’t offended. All we ever wanted for you was happiness.”

Happiness. Something that Yuuri wasn’t sure he would ever have, not with all his fears and insecurities. And, true, his worries still try to eat him alive, but as long as he has Victor close to him, he feels like he can be good enough to survive it all. He’s truly happy with Victor. Victor, who does everything to understand him. Victor, who makes him feel strong. Victor, who never stops delighting him, day after day.

Victor, who’s in love with him, and who’s marrying him.

The wedding is grand. It’s grander than Yuuri would prefer, if he’s being honest, but it’s fitting for Victor’s station. Besides, on some level, he’s glad to see so many people watching them. How many people have imagined themselves next to Victor like this? He’s been remained eligible for so long that every royal and noble in the world has has had the chance to fantasize about marrying him. But only Yuuri gets this. Only Yuuri gets to keep him; only Yuuri gets to be kept by him. They’re in love, and the whole world knows.

Their wedding rings are simple, a plain gold that matches that of their engagement rings. They carefully slide them over each other’s fingers, using just a hint of magic to slip them over their engagement rings (Yuuri refuses to take his off ever again, some part of him still afraid that he’ll lose it for good if he does; Victor makes him every assurance that the ring is only a symbol and not a source of their love, though he refuses to take his off, either, for what Yuuri suspects is the same irrational fear) which allows them to come to a rest just below the bejewelled bands.

Their kiss is supposed to be short and sweet, but as usual, once they’re in each other’s embrace, everything else, including the fact that they’re supposed to be having a formal ceremony right now, starts to take less and less of a priority in their minds. It’s only when Yuuri hears the people around them start to shuffle about that he reluctantly pulls away.

Victor shoots a charming smile at the audience, which Yuuri tries to mimic. Then, clasping their right hands together, they raise their left ones to the sky.

The whole reason they had an outdoor ceremony was for this moment. What better way to show off the raw power of the heir to the crown and his consort than to have them show off their magic at their own wedding?

Looking at Victor’s smiling face, Yuuri feels like he could burst with joy. Instead, he lets his magic do the bursting, sending brightly colored fireworks into the midday sky turned black through Victor’s magic. The two of them let the show last long enough to demonstrate how incredible their combined power is, but not so long as to cause them to tire too much. Any hint of exhaustion they might feel is immediately extinguished once they move on to the wedding banquet, anyway.

And when it’s all over, when Yuuri is all alone with his husband, he thinks back to what Mari told him and can only agree. He’s never looked happier. He’s never _felt_ happier. 

“What shall I give you now, Yuuri?” Victor whispers to him as they find their way to their bed. “Yuuri, my love, my life, what do you want?”

Yuuri smiles.

“You,” he says, and he pushes his husband onto the sheets.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is the final chapter! Thank you so much for reading!

“Yuuri, you need to come meet my father right now,” Victor insists out of the blue one morning. He says it with such morose firmness that Yuuri can guess immediately what’s wrong.

“Okay, Vitya,” Yuuri says, squeezing his hand gently. “Let’s go see him.”

The walk to the king’s chambers seems to drag on forever.

“I knew he didn’t have much time,” Victor mutters. “But I thought it would be more than this. I thought…”

“They took the stasis spells off so he could witness our wedding,” Yuuri says quietly. “And they couldn’t get them to work again, could they?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Victor says with a sigh. “I know he was watching… He was too sick to move, but we were right outside. He has a window, you know? His nurses say they took him to it. They say he smiled, Yuuri.”

“He was happy for you,” Yuuri says.

Victor doesn’t reply. Yuuri waits, softly stroking the outside of Victor’s hand with his fingers in the meantime.

“We were never that close,” Victor eventually speaks up. “We weren’t close, but I… I don’t want to see him go.”

“You don’t have to be close to love someone,” Yuuri says gently. “Of course you don’t want to see that happen.”

“Yuuri, I…” Victor starts. “I hoped you could meet him in better circumstances. I waited and waited, but he… he’s awake now, but he’s not going to…” 

Suddenly, Victor is hugging him, pressing his face into Yuuri’s chest.

“I need you with me when he goes,” he breathes.

Yuuri wraps his arms around Victor’s back. He hates seeing Victor in pain like this, wants to do anything to protect him from it, but he knows all too well the futility of trying to stop the feelings from happening. Victor is going to have to face these emotions… but he won’t have to deal with them alone.

“I’m never leaving your side, Vitya,” Yuuri promises. “Especially not now.”

Eventually, when Victor composes himself again, he guides Yuuri into his father’s room. The lights are dimmed, the curtains drawn, and Yuuri can only just make out the thin, sickly figure in the bad in front of him.

“Father,” Victor croaks out. “This is my husband. Prince Yuuri, from the Katsuki Kingdom. Do you remember?”

The bedridden king shifts upwards, just enough to look at Yuuri in the eye. 

“The little Katsuki prince,” he says weakly. “You were Vitya’s playmate.”

“I was,” Yuuri replies.

“He never forgot you,” the king continues.

“I know,” Yuuri says, turning towards his husband. “I never forgot him, either.”

“I see,” the king murmurs as he closes his eyes. He takes a shuddery breath and continues. “Tell me about your husband, Vitya. Tell me about the man you trust to share my kingdom with you.”

“I will, father,” Victor says solemnly. 

It’s almost like a bedtime story, Yuuri thinks. A happy tale of love to send the king into a peaceful slumber.

(It almost seems like sleep, save for the sudden silence that takes over the room.)

Yuuri wraps his arms around Victor’s shoulders.

Officially, Victor is now the ruler of the Nikiforov Kingdom. Formally, his coronation isn’t until the first day of the new year.

Over two weeks, plenty of time for self-doubt to creep in. Yuuri is intimately familiar with it, himself.

“Do you think I’ll be a good king, Yuuri?” Victor asks one night. It slips out casually, but Yuuri understands his husband enough to know that it’s much more than a passing thought.

“Yes,” Yuuri replies easily. If there’s anyone in the world he has complete faith in, it’s Victor. “You’re as kind as you are powerful, Vitya. No ruler could ever be better than you.”

“And yet I already had one assassination attempt on me before I even took power,” Victor mutters.

Yuuri flinches.

Even though the poisoned glass incident was taken care of quickly, it certainly isn’t a great omen. Yuuri _thinks_ their response was strong enough to deter more attempts for the time being, but nevertheless, the attack shook the minds of the people (it certainly shook Yuuri’s), and furthermore, threats are something that he and Victor are going to have to deal with not only now but for the rest of their lives. 

“I’m sorry,” Victor says softly. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I shouldn’t have said—”

“No,” Yuuri insists. “Don’t hide your worries from me just because I’ll worry about them, too. Besides, you’re _right._ There’s so much ahead of us. I… I don’t know what it’s going to be like at all.”

“Yes,” Victor says with a sigh. “Yes, that’s exactly the problem.

“But, Vitya… It will be okay.” Yuuri says, cuddling into his husband’s side. This is what Victor himself has taught him. “Whatever difficulties we face, we’ll do so together.”

“Ah… Together…” Victor murmurs.

“When I’m with you, I feel strong enough to survive anything,” Yuuri continues. “So let me promise you something, Vitya. As long as I’m with you, you _will_ survive. _We_ we will survive, no matter what we have to face,” he says firmly.

Victor gazes at Yuuri with the utmost trust in his eyes, and slowly, he smiles.

“You’re right,” he says. ”The worst thing in the world was not having you next to me. Now that you’re by my side, of course you’re right, we can make it through anything.”

The future is always uncertain, always just a little frightening. But the two of them are together, so Yuuri knows that they will be alright.


End file.
